Takes us on a haunting ethnographic journey through two historical moments when life for the Canadian Inuit has hung in the balance: the tuberculosis epidemic (1940s to the early 1960s) and the subsequent suicide epidemic (1980s to the present).
"Life Beside Itself is a profound reflection on the psychic life of biopolitics and how the biopolitical state, committed to enhancing the life of the population, renders lifeless a people's particular form of life. Lisa Stevenson writes with attentiveness to the care that binds the living and the dead in Inuit communities. That is itself a form of ethical living. Her writing is surely touched by grace. Her book illuminates the problem of suicide as the light of the moon illuminates a darkened sky. She helps us not to turn away from this suffering but to hold it. This book is truly a treasure."-Veena Das, author of Affliction: Health, Disease, Poverty
"Stevenson explores how care in Inuit communities is like a raven, a spiritual force that binds the living and the dead in ways that are not always straightforward or obvious."
